Smart & Final history

As the town grew, Hellman, Haas & Co. grew with it; in 1880, the store was listed among the seven names in Los Angeles's first phone directory.

In 1889 the company name was changed to Haas, Baruch & Co. after Abraham Haas (brother of Jacob Haas) and Jacob Baruch bought out Herman Hellman, Jacob Haas & Bernard Cohn.

The store continued to prosper and, in 1895, began selling canned tomatoes under its own Iris brand name.

By 1900, Haas, Baruch & Co. was the burgeoning city's leading wholesale grocer.

J.S. "Jim" Smart, a banker from Saginaw, Michigan, arrives in California and purchases a small feed and grain supplier, the Santa Ana Wholesale Grocery Company, which had been founded in 1912.

Meanwhile, J.S. Smart, a banker from Saginaw, Michigan, arrived in California in 1914, where he purchased a small feed and grain supplier, the Santa Ana Wholesale Company, which had been founded two years earlier.

The business relocated near the docks in San Pedro, and by 1919, sales had surged to $10 million.

In 1923, Smart brought this innovation to the West Coast, and Smart & Final became the first in the area to offer the "cash and carry" concept.

Laverty had been active in the grocery trade since 1930, when he bought the small, Los Angeles-based chain Fitzsimmons Stores Inc.

In 1947, Laverty acquired Thriftimart Inc., also based in Los Angeles, merging the two chains under the Thriftimart name.

Haas, Baruch continued to thrive; in 1948 the company opened its own 3.5-acre warehouse in Vernon, California.

Following a number of mergers and acquisitions over several decades for both companies, Smart & Final Wholesale Grocery Company acquired Hass-Baruch & Co. in 1953, forming the Smart & Final Iris Co., of which today's brand is a direct descendant.

The addition of Smart & Final's warehouse stores boosted Thriftimart's sales to $168 million by 1960.

When Laverty died in 1969, he was succeeded by his son, Roger Laverty II.

Thriftimart fared better in the second half of that decade, rebuilding its bottom line to a $4.5 million net income on sales of $368 million in 1979.

By 1982, when Thriftimart's sales peaked at $506 million, its net income fell to $4.8 million.

Thriftimart moved to divest its struggling supermarket division, selling 23 California supermarkets to Safeway Stores, Inc. in 1983.

By 1984, with sales just under $500 million, net income had dropped to $1.5 million.

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Thriftimart, Inc. changes its name to Smart & Final Iris Corporation and in 1988 is acquired by Casino USA, the American subsidiary of Casino Groupe.

In 1991, with sales of $663 million, Smart & Final went public again, with Casino maintaining a 53 percent share of the company's stock.

In Florida, Smart & Final continued its policy of opening stores in inner city areas typically shunned by other grocers--after the 1992 riots, for example, Smart & Final opened 11 stores in Los Angeles--while providing a product assortment geared to its customers' cultures and needs.

By 1993, that business expanded beyond frozen foods to supply delicatessen and other products as well.

The first stores opened in Baja, Mexico, with plans for nine stores by 1995 and as many as 50 stores in the near future.

In early 1996 the company opened its first six Dade and Broward county stores, with plans to grow to as many as 40 stores in Florida by the end of the century.

When Smart & Final Extra! opened a store in Coronado at 150 B Avenue, it promised the residents that it would have sushi on the menu soon and a month later in March 2006, they kept their word.

On 20th February 2007, Apollo Management entered into a contract with Smart & Final to acquire it for around $812.9 million.

By November 2010 it had opened four other stores, but then it announced it was closing down all the five stores and exiting the Denver market.

In February 2011, SmartCo Foods acquired Sprouts Farmers Market in Colorado, in 9 locations.

On October 11, 2012, Smart & Final announced that Ares Management had entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the company’s majority stake with the minority stake remaining with senior management.

In September 2014, it started trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol, SFS, after making its IPO of nearly 13.5 million shares.

In 2015, Smart & Final announced through its website that it was revamping the Sun Harvest Brand.

2, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Smart & Final, a value-oriented food and everyday staples retailer for household and business customers, will celebrate 145 years as a provider to the communities it serves with a sweepstakes to award a 2016 Smart Car to one lucky winner.

In August, 2017, Smart & Final launched its own delivery website, which is powered by Instacart.

As of February 2018, Ares Management owned 60.4% of Smart & Final as revealed by the SC 13 GA form which it filed with SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). The form also disclosed that Ares Management owned 44, 218, 762 shares of Smart & Final.

In June 2019, Smart & Final Stores, Inc. was privatized through an acquisition by funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management, LLC, who had previously acquired the brand 12 years earlier.

In April 2020, Smart Foodservice Warehouse Stores were sold to US Foods.